This invention relates to material separating devices and particularly to an aggragate separator having a separating surface of diverging end-stretched wires.
Traditional aggragate separators for separating sand and gravel are heavy bins having a separating surface or a plurality of separating surfaces which are typically made of a heavy wire mesh or parallel tensioned wires. In most applications these separating surfaces are sloped or employed in combination with a conveyor to move the bulk material to be separated across the separating surface. Vibrating or aggitating the separator serves several purposes, it tends to turn the material over so that more of the smaller particles are exposed to the separating surface, it tends to break the clumps of particles apart, and it also tends to reduce the friction between the separating surface and the material to enhance the material flow across the surface. Scarlett et al., U.S. Pat. No. 4,140,630, is illustrative of many of the features described above.
Other types of separators auch as the food graders of Greiner, U.S. Pat. No. 2,728,455, and Lamborn, U.S. Pat. No. 3,977,525, disclose a separating surface having a plurality of longitudinally-extending rigid members which diverge from each other in the direction of material flow. Buchbinder, U.S. Pat. No. 3,779,379, discloses a rubbish sorter having a separating surface of diverging, widely spaced moving belts which turn the rubbish over to separate smaller particles of the trash from the bulkier items.